Future housing may be farther away

Future students who are looking for off-campus housing may find that their search takes them farther away from campus -- and more into the community of State College.

Borough manager Peter Marshall, planning director Carl Hess and zoning officer Herman Slaybaugh presented the State College Borough Council with a proposal Jan. 9 for three ordinances regarding student housing. Two amend the current zoning ordinance and the third amends the property maintenance code, requiring improvements of parking and trash storage areas.

The first, called the student home zoning ordinance, is intended to control the number of one- and two-family homes that can be converted to student rental homes. The second, the townhouse occupancy rule zoning ordinance, would limit the occupancy of townhomes to three unrelated persons.

The proposed ordinances would not cut current student housing, but would limit its growth.

Marshall, Hess and Slaybaugh sent a memorandum to the council outlining the ordinances. The student home zoning ordinance would redefine the existing "family clause," clarifying that three unrelated students living in a home do not make a family. Any one-family or two-family home occupied by two or more unrelated students would be a student home.

"They're discriminating against students," said Undergraduate Student Government Governmental Relations Committee chair Blair Schwartz. "They make no bones about it."

Jay Birdsell, director of town affairs, agreed with Schwartz and said USG is looking into several options to work with the council to develop a more student-friendly proposal.

"It's more depressing than anything because it's the borough, another government, telling where you can and can't live," he said. "By doing this and letting this go through, we've just forfeited the opportunity to live where we want to live."

But council member Ruth Lavin said that would not happen.

"It would not close down student housing," Lavin said. "The houses would still be open to student housing, but the student housing would be spread. It would not be clustered together. I don't think it will hurt students one bit. Students have more housing choices in this community than anyone else has."

In 1988, Lower Merion Township, located near Philadelphia, created a "student home" ordinance, limiting the growing number of single-family homes within the township that could be occupied by unrelated college students. The ordinance successfully capped the number of homes that could be converted to student homes, according to the memorandum.

A similar measure in State College was put aside pending a court challenge of the Lower Merion ordinance.

To be considered student housing, a house has to be a one- or two-family dwelling, occupied by college students who are not related. Married couples who are college students would make the unit a single-family home.

"(Students are) going to be denied housing in certain areas," Schwartz said. "If they find an adequate location that's suitable for them and it's not within the student housing realm, they're going to be denied for the only reason that they are a student."

The ordinances do not affect current student homes. But the main concern for students right now, Schwartz said, is that they may find themselves further from the University than they might like.

Students will be forced to look for housing further away, and they'll be more spread out if the ordinances pass the council, though Schwartz says it is unlikely that the proposed ordinances will pass the council in their current forms.

"The effect that they want it to have is that they want to eliminate student clusters in neighborhoods in the borough," Schwartz said. "It is diminishing property values, they have more noise complaints -- the basic premise is to eliminate and to prevent and push them in other places."

Birdsell said the proposal would, in effect, punish the students who are least likely to cause problems.

"The students who are noisy and who are going to throw parties are going to live downtown and cause problems," said Birdsell. "The ones who move away are older students, graduate students, and upperclassmen who are moving for privacy and comfort, and it's more conducive to the environment."

But Lavin stressed that the council is just trying to prevent large clusters of students from living together.

"We're trying to give living together so that it becomes a totally integrated community in all areas," Lavin said.

Hess and Slaybaugh did not return calls. Marshall was out of town and could not be reached for comment.